Theophilus North (30 page)

“I forget which that is.”

“That of the eighteenth century. I'll leave a marked map for your driver. Now can we go back to
Walden?
”

She put her hand to her forehead. “I'm tired today. Will you excuse me, if I ask you to leave now? I want to think. We'll pay you just the same. . . . But stop! Before you go write down the names of those painters in Italy that help make beautiful children, and some pieces of music that are good for that too.”

I wrote down: “Raphael. Da Vinci. Fra Angelico,” and added an address in New York where the best prints could be obtained. Then: “Gramophone records by Mozart:
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Ave, verum corpus
.”

There was a knock at the door. Mr. Granberry entered. Greetings.

“How's my dear little squirrel today?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“What are you reading now?”

“Walden.”

“
Walden
, oh, yes—
Walden
. Well, that wouldn't interest us much, I think.”

“Why not, George?”

He pinched her cheek. “We wouldn't be happy on thirty cents a day.”

“I like it. It's the first book I want to read all through in class. George, this is a list of all the books I've read. I want you to buy every one of them for me. Mr. North has to go and get them at the People's Library. They're not very clean and people have written silly things in the margins. I want my own books so that I can write my own silly things in the margins.”

“I'll see to that, Myra. My secretary will send for them tomorrow morning. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Here are the names of some painters who lived in Italy. If you want to be an angel, you can buy me some pictures by them.”

He gasped. “Why, Myra, any pictures by one of these men would cost a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Well, you pay more than that for those boats you never use, don't you? You can buy me one and Papa will buy me another. Here's the name of a man who wrote some good music. Please buy me the best gramophone that you can find and those records. . . . I'm a little tired today and I've just asked Mr. North to cut short the reading. I told him we'd pay him just the same . . . but don't
you
go.”

Then something very painful happened.

Two days later I was met at the door, as usual, by the butler, Carel, a Czech—as distinguished in appearance as an ambassador but as self-effacing as an ambassador's personal secretary. He bent his head and whispered, “Mrs. Cummings wishes to speak to you here, sir, before you enter the morning room.”

“I'll wait here, Carel.”

Carel and Mrs. Cummings must have arranged some system of coded signals, for she appeared in the hall. She spoke hurriedly. “Mrs. Granberry received two letters this morning which have upset her
badly
. I think she wants to tell you about them. She wouldn't go for a drive. She has scarcely said a dozen words to me. When you leave, please tell Carel anything I should know. Wait three minutes before you knock on the door.” She pressed my hand and returned to the morning room.

I waited three minutes and knocked on the door. It was opened by Mrs. Cummings.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” I said buoyantly.

Myra's face was very stern. “Cora, I have something that I must discuss with Mr. North and I must ask you to leave the room for five minutes.”

“Oh, Mrs. Granberry, you mustn't ask me to do that. I'm an R.N. and I must obey every word of the doctor's orders.”

“All I ask is that you go out on the verandah. You can leave the door ajar, but you must not try to hear a single word.”

“I don't like it at all; oh, I don't like it at all.”

“Mrs. Cummings,” I said, “since this seems to be an important matter to Mrs. Granberry I shall stand by the verandah door where you can see me every minute. If any subject arises that has to do with medical matters I shall
insist
on repeating it to you.”

When Mrs. Cummings had withdrawn to a distance I stood waiting like a sentry.

“Theophilus, Badgers always tell the truth to Badgers.”

“Myra, I am my own judge of what truths I shall tell. The truth can do just as much harm as a lie.”

“I need help.”

“Ask me some questions and I shall try to help you so far as I am able.”

“Do you know a woman named Flora Deland?”

“I have dined at her house at Narragansett Pier three times.”

“Do you know a woman named Desmoulins?”

“I have met her at dinner there once and I have met her by chance on the street in Newport once.”

“Is she a harlot and a strumpet and that other thing in
Tom Jones
—a doxy?”

“No, indeed. She is a woman of some refinement. She is what some people would call an ‘emancipated' woman. I would never think of applying those ugly words to her.”

“ ‘Emancipate' means to free the slaves. Was she a slave?”

I laughed as cheerily as I could. “Oh, no.—Now stop this nonsense and tell me what you are trying to get at.”

“Is she better-looking than I am?”

“No.”

“Badger?”

“Badger!”

“B
ADGER
?”

“B
ADGER
!—She is a very pretty woman. You are a very beautiful woman. I'll go and call Mrs. Cummings.”

“Stop!—Have you had dinner almost every Thursday night with my husband and Miss Desmoulins at the Muenchinger-King?”

“No.
Never
. Please get to the point.”

“I have received two an-anonny-mous letters.”

“Myra! You tore them up at once.”

“No.” She lifted a book on the table and revealed two envelopes.

“I'm ashamed of you. . . . In the world—and especially in a place like Newport—we are surrounded by people whose heads are filled with hate and envy and nastiness. Once in a while one of them takes to writing anonymous letters. They say it comes and goes in epidemics, like influenza. You should have torn them into small pieces—unread—and put them out of your mind. Do they say that I had dinner with those two persons at the M-K?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's a sample of the lies that fill anonymous letters.”

“Read them. Please read them.”

I debated with myself: “Hell, I'm resigning from this job tonight anyway.”

I studied the envelopes carefully. Then I glanced through the contents; I can read fast. When I came to the end of the second I burst out laughing. “Myra, all anonymous letters are signed either by ‘A Friend' or ‘Your Well-Wisher.' ” She burst into tears. “Myra, no Badger cries after the age of eleven.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Years ago, Badger, I planned to make my life-career that of being a detective. When boys are ambitious they really are ambitious. I read all the professional handbooks about it—hard, tough books of instruction. And I remember that the tracing down of anonymous letter writers was an important section. We were taught that there are twenty-one ‘give-away' clues to every anonymous letter. Give me these letters and in two weeks I'll find the writer and drive him—or her—out of town.”

“But, Theophilus, maybe
him
or
her
is right. Maybe my husband loves Miss Desmoulins. Maybe my baby has no father any more. Then I might as well die. Because I love my husband more than anything else in the world.”

“Badgers don't cry, Myra—they fight. They're smart, they're brave, and they defend what they've got. They also have something that I find missing in you.”

She looked at me, appalled. “What?”

“They're like otters. They have a sense of fun and laughter and
wicked tricks
.”

“But, Theophilus, I've always had them too. But lately I've had so much illness and lonesomeness and boredom. Believe me, my father used to call me his ‘little devil.' Oh, Theophilus, put your arm around me one minute.”

Laughingly I squeezed her hand hard and said, “Not one second!—Now promise me that you'll put this whole wretched business out of your head for a week. . . . Badgers always catch the snake. Can I call Mrs. Cummings now? . . . Mrs. Cummings, it's school time. Mrs. Cummings, you're a wonderful friend and you should know what we talked about. Mrs. Granberry heard an ugly bit of gossip. I told her that no one who's intelligent and beautiful and rich has ever escaped gossip. Aren't I right?”

“Oh, Mr. North, you're very right.”

Naturally that about the twenty-one clues was sheer kite-flying. In my hasty glance at the letter I read that Mr. Granberry entertained Mlle. Desmoulins at dinner in one of the small dining rooms at the Muenchinger-King every Thursday night. It went on to tell of Flora Deland's dinners, mentioned myself, bloodwarmingly, as an “odious person,” then rambled on in a grieved self-righteous way. I judged that they had been written by a woman, some former friend of George Granberry, that unoccupied planless inventor—perhaps by a Granberry. I returned to our classroom work as though nothing had intervened to upset it. We read
Walden
.

I needed help—that is to say, I needed to know more.

I arranged to meet Henry for a pool game at Herman's. During an interval I asked him if he knew George F. Granberry. He was chalking his cue thoughtfully and said, “Funny, your asking me that,” and went on with the game. When the set was over we paid up and withdrew to a corner and ordered our usual.

“I don't like to mention names. We'll call the party Longears. Choppers, under idleness all men and women become children again. Women cope with it better than men, but all men become babies. Look at me: when my Chief's away I have to fight it every minute. Fortunately, just now I'm busy. Edweena and I are exchanging letters and making plans. We're the Governors of the Servants' Ball at the end of the season and that takes a lot of hard work. . . . Longears belongs to a very large family. He could get a job any minute in the family's firm, but it's stuffed already with a dozen members of the same name, all of them brighter than he is. They don't want him. He doesn't need the money. Before the War there were scores of young and middle-aged men like him in New York and Newport, rich, and idle as tailors' dummies. In 1926 you can count 'em on one hand. When I arrived here he was already a divorced man—so maybe the blight had set in early. Everybody said he used to be intelligent and popular. For some reason he couldn't get into the War. He married again—a girl from the Wild West, like Tennessee or Buffalo. She has poor health. Nobody sees her much. Men like that take to drink or women or gambling. A few take to boasting, to setting themselves up as some kind of superior person—something special. Longears pretends that he's an inventor. He has a workshop out in Portsmouth—very secret, very important. Rumors—some say he's making bread out of seaweed or making gasoline out of manure. Anyway, he
hides
there. Some people say that he doesn't do anything more than play with electric trains or stick postage stamps into his collection. . . . Used to be a fine fellow. He was my Chief's best friend, but now my Chief just wags his head when he's mentioned.”

“Was it the divorce that broke him up?”

“I wouldn't know. I think it's merely nothing-to-do. Idleness is dry rot. . . . He has a girl hidden in the bushes here somewhere—he's not the only one who does that, of course. . . . That's all I know,”

At the next session I appeared with a satchel under my arm. Among the books it contained were three school editions of
Twelfth Night
and three of
As You Like It
. I had worked for hours on them, selecting scenes for group reading. “Good afternoon, ladies. Today we are going to try something new.” I drew out the copies of
Twelfth Night
.

“Oh, Theophilus—not Shakespeare!
Please!
”

“You dislike his work?” I asked in hypocritical wonder. I began cramming the copies back into the satchel. “That surprises me, but you remember we agreed at our first meeting that we'd not read anything that bored you. Excuse me! My mistake is due to my inexperience. Hitherto I've tutored only boys and young men. After a short resistance I'd found that they take to Shakespeare enthusiastically. I've had them striding up and down my classroom pretending to be Romeo and Juliet and Shylock and Portia—eating it up! . . . I remember now how surprised I was when Mr. Granberry also said that he had always thought Shakespeare to be ‘piffle.' Well, I have another novel here to try.”

Myra was staring at me. “Wait a minute! . . . But his plays are so childish. All those girls dressing up in men's clothes. It's idiotic!”

“Yes, a few of them. But notice how Shakespeare has arranged it. The girls have to do so because they're destitute; their backs are against the wall. Viola is shipwrecked in a foreign country; Rosalind is exiled—thrown out into the wilderness; Imogen has been slandered in her husband's absence. Portia dresses like a lawyer to save the life of her husband's best friend. In those days a self-respecting girl couldn't go from door to door asking for a job. . . . Let's forget it! . . . But what girls they are: beautiful, brave, intelligent, resourceful! In addition, I've always felt they have a quality that I've found . . . a little . . . missing in you, Myra.”

“What's that?”

“A humorous mind.”

“A
what?
”

“I don't know exactly what I mean, but I get the impression that they've observed life so attentively—young though they are—that they don't shrink from the real; they're never crushed or shocked or at their wit's end. Even when the big catastrophe comes their minds are so deeply grounded that they can face it with humor and gaiety. When Rosalind is driven out into that dangerous wilderness she says to her cousin Celia: